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Big-screen con artists: 7 great movies about social engineering

They may have been called con artists, scoundrels or even matchstick men. Regardless of the name, social engineers have been the subject of several great movies over the years.
Here are seven examples of films where social engineers' techniques were turned into big-screen stories.

Con men Roy (Nicholas Cage) and Frank (Sam Rockwell) run a scam that starts with telemarketing a price-inflated water filtration system and ends with posing as federal agents who want to nail the telemarketers. This con starts small and ends with a big-time take.

As social engineering expert and author Chris Hadnagy said, "This movie is about a scam wrapped in an social engineering gig wrapped in a con. It is a twister and really good.” (Read the article for more details about this and the other films -- though we won't spoil all the surprises.)

As Martin Bishop, Robert Redford leads a team that is paid to break into companies that want to test their own security.

In one scene, the objective is for Martin to get past a security guard at the front desk of a secure high-rise. Martin's teammate poses as a pizza delivery person and engages the guard in an argument, distracting him from properly checking Martin's story before buzzing Martin through the checkpoint.

Ferris Bueller's day off can't properly start until he has also gotten his girlfriend Sloane out of school.

In a memorable scene, Ferris (Matthew Broderick) has his friend Cameron call school principal Mr. Rooney and pretend to be Sloane’s father, asking that Sloane be dismissed because her grandmother has died. Rooney actually assumes the caller is Bueller -- until Bueller himself rings in on the other line with an innocent question about homework. This second call embarrasses Rooney, causing him to miss what's really afoot in spite of his initial suspicions.

A wealthy but bored business man, Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) decides to pull off an art heist at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art just for the fun and challenge of it.

Crown's first step involves hanging out repeatedly in the museum and establishing a rapport with the guards. Ultimately he combines social engineering tactics with various distractions to steal the painting "San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk" by Monet, valued at $100 million.

Hadnagy describes this film as “another classic about two con men fighting for the right to stay in their territory.”

Con man Freddie (Steve Martin) is a low-end American scam artist; he poses as a wounded soldier in a wheelchair and swindles money from female victims for an alleged operation for his grandmother. The other social engineer in the film is Lawrence (Michael Caine), who runs his cons in the finer hotels in Southern France.

While still just a teenager, Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) runs away from home and manages to pose as Pan Am pilot and scam thousands of miles of free flights around the world. While he’s at it, he also cashes millions of dollars in forged checks from Pan Am. In the film, Abagnale also successfully pretended to be a doctor and a teacher before he was caught by the FBI years later.

“The finest example,” of a social engineering example in film, according to social engineering and identity theft exert John Sileo.

Inspired by the true story of con artist David Hampton, Will Smith plays Paul, a young man who manages to fool a wealthy New York City couple, Ouisa and Flan Kittredge (Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland).

Paul shows up at the Kittredges' home one night, bleeding and asking for assistance. He claims to be the son of actor Sidney Poitier, and also says he knows the Kittredge’s children. By the end of the night, he has conned money and a place to sleep from them.